I owe my mother everything

Part of a series on our moms—or about being a mom—for Mother's Day


I owe my mother everything.

What I am, what I was, what I will be, is all thanks to her devotion and love. She not only gave me life but set me on a path where there is no fear of the unknown and the days are filled with knowledge, joy and faith. And that is the most valuable thing she has ever given me.

She would often say it was not important to belong so long as you know in your heart you are right. When people complained to her about her non-conformist child, she would retort, “He better be.”

It was my mom who encouraged me to discover the quiet places of knowledge within the pages of prose and literature. You see, she wasn’t satisfied with just loving her children. It was her sacred duty to sharpen our minds, lend us courage, and temper our intellect with the wisdom of the spoken and written word.

Academic accolades did not carry much weight in her eyes. We got praised more for entering elocution contests, winning essay writing contests and joining debates rather than bringing home first or second honors. I remember with horror the way she would volunteer us for public speaking contests at school despite our piteous pleas.

Though disapproving of most juvenile interests of youth, she let us be kids, albeit under her steady and watchful eye. As a child, I was allowed to bake myself black upon the beaches and sugarcane fields of Bacolod. I fell off trees, got struck by a kite on my forehead, caught and ate snails in the canals, and even half drowned myself fishing for catfish by the river.  But when the day’s adventures came to a dusty and quiet end, another world awaited me. In the dark corners of the family library, I found myself in the shadow of castles, wild animals and the pageantry of times long past. For though my mom let me be with the other kids, she insisted that Kipling, Shakespeare, Twain, Asimov, Hemingway and T.H. White were also my fast and inseparable friends.

She carefully selected what books her children should read, oftentimes matching our personalities and interests with specific authors. I got Asimov, Bradbury and Twain often while my brother, who adored the medieval era, got the Tolkiens of the world. Some of the books had been with her since she was a student. Mom told me she had kept the books she loved in the hopes of one day sharing it with her children.

I also learned to write under her guidance. When I tried emulating the writing styles of my heroes in literature, my mom insisted I develop a style of my own. She was an overbearing and demanding literature teacher but at the same time nurturing and caring. To check whether we understood the books she gave us, there was a time we had to make book reports. Perhaps she knew, in the infallible and unassailable wisdom mothers seem to possess, that I it was all for the best.

Though she never corrected any of my writing, she believed that writing long enough and reading well-written books would straighten out anybody’s use of the English language. Whenever we got our writings published in the school paper, my mother would beam brighter than the lighthouse in ancient Alexandria.

People say sacrifice is synonymous to motherhood and I couldn’t agree more. Mom gave us everything she could. She wanted to be a lawyer like my grandfather, whose career carried him all the way to the Supreme Court. But then mom realized raising her kids was a better and more noble calling. It must have been a difficult decision for a woman who excelled in academics all her life. But decide she did.

She worked for a few more years as a bank manager before eventually dropping everything to devote her time to her five children. A few decades after her selfless act, I can only hope I had been worthy of her sacrifice.

But my sweet mother was also a woman. Fire and brimstone; lightning and thunder. Most children close to their moms will understand what I mean. When my journey through life took unexpected and oftentimes disastrous turns, I found myself in the eye of her tempest. It was these very storms that I had to navigate that opened my eyes to the ills of this world and the frailty, not only of myself, but also that of my fellow man. And though she raged about me during my periods of iniquity, my heart secretly knew all would be well in the end. For when the storms passed and I lay upon the sea of my demise, I knew my mom would come to pluck me from defeat and set me again upon my way.

Four decades after giving me life, my mom still calls me up to say I should write more articles or that I should pursue a career in writing rather than broadcasting. She wants to know what kind of books her grandchildren are reading and why they are spending so much time tinkering with the tablets or watching tv.

The relentless creature that she is, she trolls her children’s social media accounts and weighs in on almost every post or comment.

She is my biggest fan and harshest critic. When I do my work on tv, I know my mom is watching and cheering in the same way she supported her children at school.

But she will also be the first one to say that I look like a tramp on screen or that my Tagalog is off while delivering the news.

When admonishing or criticizing her children, mom would always end her monologues saying we should be glad someone is honest enough to tell us off rather than allow us to live, believing everything is right in the universe.

Mothers are like that I guess. They never give up on their children.

And I am proud to say this one is mine.